The History of a palm

[PalmGuyWC]

I was looking through the Memorial section of Palm Talk and read the obit of Dent Smith's 2nd wife and the history of Dent Smith. I was reminded that in 1973 Dent had scheduled a Palm Society meeting at his famous palm garden. People from all over Florida came to see Dent's spectacular garden, but upon arriving on the day of the meeting, we learned that Dent's first wife, Guadalupe Martinez, had passed away the night before. Since many people had come from such long distances, Dent said the meeting would go on as scheduled, even though he was grief stricken and could not attend.

Lucita Wait, the seed bank lady, was there and she had some seeds that had been sent to her from Huntington Gardens. She didn't have many seeds, but they were from a Butia X Jubaea cross. I was given 5 seeds, but only one germinated. The palm from that seed is growing now in my garden in Walnut Creek. Simple arithmetic tells me the palm is about 36 years old. Many hybrid seeds have come from that one palm. It is self sterile, but Patrick Schafer has crossed it with Butia, Jubaea, and Syagrus. Reverse crosses with it's pollen have also been achieved with Butia, Jubaea and Syagrus. The progney from this palm are now growing in the far corners of the globe.

Dick

[Rafael]

Amazing history!

How about a picture of that 36 years old mother?

[Mark Heath]

Thank you Dick for sharing the background/history of the parent palm as to which i have many offspring!

Here is the above said palm crossed w/ Syagrus.r.

[peachy]

Thank you Dick. I didnt know that , one could cross with a sterile palm, useful information if I ever get clever enough to try anything like that. BTW I adore your garden !!

Peacgt

[simona]

Thank you for sharing the story!

[Alberto]

Interesting to know the story of this palm....

I also have offspring of this palm, crossed with Syagrus romanzoffiana and also a few from open pollination.

From this last palm,one will flower now for the first time. It has very erect fronds but with very thin floppy points , giving it a very distinctive look, different from the perfect arch of the b.eriospatha you can see in the first pic (on the right side)

(i´m curious about the collor of the flowers....a few weeks and the spatha will open...)

http://www.palmtalk....=1&#entry382778

[Alberto]

So the famous BxJ is 36 years old...

Dick,how was the growth of this palm compared to your big Jubaeas? BTW How old are they now?

[Nigel]

  On 5/11/2010 at 6:08 PM, Alberto said:

So the famous BxJ is 36 years old...

Dick,how was the growth of this palm compared to your big Jubaeas? BTW How old are they now?

Alberto, do your butias carry seeds through the winter months without problem ? I remember that in the UK the frosts would quickly kill off any butia seeds that were in process of setting.

[Alberto]

  On 5/11/2010 at 6:22 PM, Nigel said:

  On 5/11/2010 at 6:08 PM, Alberto said:

So the famous BxJ is 36 years old...

Dick,how was the growth of this palm compared to your big Jubaeas? BTW How old are they now?

Alberto, do your butias carry seeds through the winter months without problem ? I remember that in the UK the frosts would quickly kill off any butia seeds that were in process of setting.

......without problems I cannot say. There are a few spathas that opens during the fall,but that doesn´t produce the same amount of fruits then during the summer,specially if there are harder freezes....

[PalmGuyWC]

Nigel, Alberto,

I estimate my Jubaeas are about 45 years old. They and the Butia X Jubaea were all planted about the same time, but I grew the Bujubaea from a seed and the Jubaeas were all over a meter tall when they were planted, so they had a head start. All of the Jubaeas are taller than the Bujubaea, about half again as tall. The Bujubaea grows at about the same rate as my Butias. Jubaeas are very slow growing until they form a full trunk, then they speed up and grow about a foot of trunk a year.

Concerning seeds: Butias don't seem to carry seeds very well over the winter, however Syagrus do. The hybrid Syagrus seeds just stop growing if they are not fully developed before cold weather arrives. They resume growth when warm weather arrives in the spring. In Northern Calif, it takes about 1 year to 14 months for Syagrus seeds to mature, while it only takes about 5 or 6 months for Butia seeds to mature. Jubaea seeds mature in about 4 to 5 months.

Dick

[freakypalmguy]

That is neat to have that kind of background on that beauty. It must be satisfying to know that the offspring of your palms have been spread over the entire world and a good percentage of the members here, have one or more growing in their garden. Pretty cool.

I think I have the latest picture taken, so here she is in all her glory

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt,

Thanks for posting the photo. Since you were here in Feb, the palm has had a good trim to the lower fronds, and now more trunk is showing. No signs of bloom spathes emerging, as warm weather is about 6 weeks behind in Walnut Creek.

Dick

[iamjv]

Still one of the best looking palms I've ever seen... so proud to have an offspring which was just planted in my new garden this past week. Jv

[Kris]

Dear Matt

Beautiful visual...and i love this palm even more that the pure forms !

Dear Dick

That's a very beautiful butia hybrid i have ever seen...

Thanks & Love,

kris